Chapter 479: Sincerity
The living room was dark.
It was heavy, absolute dark. The curtains were drawn tight against the gray afternoon, and no lamps had been switched on. The only illumination came from the tall windows on one side of the wall, a cold, wet gray seeping through the glass, casting long shadows that stretched across the marble floor.
Outside, rain poured. It hammered against the window in relentless sheets, streaking the glass with rivers of silver that blurred the view into nothing but shapeless light and shadow.
The sound filled the room, a low, constant drumming that swallowed every other noise, that seeped into the walls and the furniture and the bones.
It was cold. The heating system was left off for too long, and the man had stopped noticing temperature altogether. He was sitting on the single armchair facing the window, but the leather had gone stiff with the chill.
His silhouette was a dark shape against the darker window, his face unreadable, his hands resting limp on the armrests. He didn’t move when the door slammed open.
"Let go of me! Do you know who I am?! I am Elara Vasiliev! I will have your position for th—I will have your head!"
Oleg dragged her in. The weretiger’s grip was firm on her arm, his expression stone, his ears flat against his skull. He said nothing as Elara thrashed and spat and clawed at his hand.
He simply brought her to the center of the room and released her, stepping back into the shadows like a servant who had done his duty and wanted no further part in what came next.
Elara straightened her rumpled silk blouse haughtily, furious now. She had never been manhandled in her life and intended to make everyone pay for the indignity. Her eyes found the silhouette of her son in the armchair.
"You useless fool," she hissed. "Look at you. Sitting in the dark like a sulking child. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The board is in an uproar. The lawyers are circling like vultures. And you—you—are sitting here doing nothing."
Arzhen didn’t turn. The rain filled the silence.
"Your father was right about you." Elara’s voice climbed, each word sharper than the last. "He knew you’d amount to nothing. A disappointment from the day you were born. Weak. Pathetic—"
She stepped closer, her heels clicking against the marble. "I shouldn’t have given birth to you. I shouldn’t ever have married that pathetic excuse of a man either. You—you wasted my youth, my beauty, my life! Should’ve keep pushing that pillow down over your puny little face when you were two—"
"Ah." Arzhen still didn’t turn. His silhouette remained motionless against the gray window, the rain streaming down the glass like tears he wasn’t shedding.
"I see now."
He felt like he finally found that clarity.
"It’s all your fault."
It was all her fault, wasn’t it?
Cecilia... she left him because of this bitch, was it?
This woman who had whispered poison in his ear from childhood. This woman who had called Cecilia worthless and fake and a pale imitation of Ruby. This woman who had told him, again and again, that his wife was beneath him—
If his mother hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t poured her venom into his ear every single day of their marriage, would Cecilia have stayed? Would he have realized his love for her sooner? Would she have smiled at him the way she did at that man on the truck?
It was all her fault.
"What...?" Elara frowned, her earlier fury faltering as she registered the complete lack of emotion in her son’s voice. There was no anger there. No heat. Just... cold.
"Oleg," Arzhen called.
The tiger stepped forward once more, his massive frame emerging from the shadows. "Yes, sir?"
"Put her in the basement. Call the doctor to sever the nerves running down her arms and legs." Arzhen said. "Order that operation that will take away her vocal cords too."
Oleg didn’t move. For a long moment, the weretiger simply stared at his master’s silhouette, his own face slack with shock. "...Sir...?"
No one would fail to flinch hearing what Arzhen had just ordered. Not even a servant who had served the Vasiliev family for decades. Not even a man who had seen the worst this household could offer.
"Do it," Arzhen said.
"ARZHEN VASILIEV YOU BA—"
"When she comes back, you will be her little plaything." Arzhen’s words cut through his mother’s scream. He still didn’t turn around. He still didn’t raise his voice. "After how you treated her... after what you told me about her... she’ll be glad for this little gift, right?"
"HOW DARE Y—"
Arzhen waved his hand. Oleg’s training overrode his shock, and his palm struck the back of Elara’s neck. She crumpled instantly, her tirade cut off mid-word, her body folding to the cold marble floor.
"But Master..." Oleg’s voice was hesitant now. Careful. He knew his place but couldn’t quite believe what he had just been asked to do to his master’s own mother.
"We will say that Old Madam had suddenly suffered a stroke." Arzhen said. "She’ll never leave the residence again."
A pause. Then, quieter, "Yes, sir."
Oleg gathered Elara’s limp body and dragged her out of the room. But someone else entered at the same time.
Igor stepped inside. His phone was clutched in his hand.
"Master..." he called softly.
Arzhen didn’t turn. The rain continued its endless drumming against the glass.
"Miss Ruby’s Certification Camp just contacted us. Miss Ruby is in need of more backup resources since she’s about to enter a controlled rift once more. She insisted on coming despite her condition..."
"Let her do whatever she wants." Arzhen said flatly. "We’re pulling back all support."
Igor froze. His hand tightened around the phone. "P-pulling away... all support...?"
"I don’t care about her anymore."
"But—"
"She’s the one who said I shouldn’t come." The words were delivered without inflection, without heat, without anything that resembled the devotion Arzhen had once poured into that name. "And if anything happens, just ignore it."
The silence stretched. Igor’s throat bobbed, then, finally, "Yes, sir."
Arzhen didn’t move. He listened to Igor’s footsteps retreat toward the door, listened to the door begin to close. He wondered, distantly, if showing this much sincerity would be enough.
If cutting his mother’s limbs off, abandoning Ruby, burning down everything he had once held sacred, would she see it? Would she understand? Would she return to him?
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